Talking About Trees (Arabic: الحديث عن الأشجار) is a 2019 documentary film directed by Sudanese film director Suhaib Gasmelbari. It follows the efforts of the Sudanese Film Group, represented by retired filmmakers Ibrahim Shadad, Manar Al Hilo, Suleiman Mohamed Ibrahim and Altayeb Mahdi, to reopen an outdoor movie theater in the city of Omdurman in the face of decades of Islamist censorship and inefficient bureaucracy.[1][2] According to film critic Jay Weissberg, the title of the film "comes from Bertolt Brecht’s 1940 poem To Those Born Later, in which he laments the suppression of discussion under dictatorship, and how shifting the discourse to mundane topics painfully draws attention to what can’t be spoken aloud."[3]
Critical reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 100% based on reviews from 14 critics.[4] A review in the British newspaper The Guardian characterized the film as follows: "First-time director Suhaib Gasmelbari takes a meditative, gently observational approach here. He chooses not to directly interview the four film-makers; instead, what unfolds is a rather lovely poetic portrait of male friendship, cinephilic obsession and elegant dignity."[5]
Following its premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, Talking about Trees received numerous awards at film festivals worldwide. In 2019, the film also was awarded the Variety MENA Talent Award at the El Gouna Film Festival in Egypt, where film critic Jay Weissberg said:[2]
"It is really a film as well that speaks to all of us about what cinema means to us; about the beauty of seeing a film as an audience, of experiencing it collectively, rather than watching it on our iPads, rather than watching it on our cellphones; that the importance of having that with us is so vital."
— Jay Weissberg, film critic, Variety Magazine
References to films by Sudanese filmmakers
In this documentary, Ibrahim Shadad talks about his short graduation film 'Jagdpartie' (Hunting party), that he made in 1964 at the Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst Potsdam-Babelsberg in East Germany. This symbolic story about racism was shot in a forest in Brandenburg, and employs the genre of Western movies for the hunting of an African man.[6] Also, Shadad talks about his 14-minute documentary Jamal (Camel) that he produced in Sudan in 1981, featuring the work of a camel in a sesame mill.[7]
